


To Lose a Home Piece by Piece

by Ferith12



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen, Origin Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:02:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27333115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ferith12/pseuds/Ferith12
Summary: When Gwaine was nearly twelve he was sent away with his mother and his sister with nothing but the clothes on their backs and a small purse full of coin that his mother clutched like it could save them, and his father’s sword.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	To Lose a Home Piece by Piece

When Gwaine was nearly twelve he was sent away with his mother and his sister with nothing but the clothes on their backs and a small purse full of coin that his mother clutched like it could save them, and his father’s sword.

(“What on earth are you bringing that for?” his mother asked, “We can’t hope to sell it without buying trouble.”

“It’s my father’s sword. I’m keeping it.”

“Well, you’re carrying it then. Don’t expect me to help if you get tired.”)

Gwaine’s father had never been a very skilled knight, but he had been loyal. He had, as far as Gwaine could tell, been a nearly flawless person. Gwaine thought that loyalty should be rewarded, even if it wasn’t particularly practical. His father had been a mostly useless knight, but he had been a  _ good _ one. But good meant nothing to Caerleon.

Maybe if his mother’s begging had been more begging and less demand, maybe if his mother were less haughty, or if her family hadn’t been a nuisance to the king and kingdom in general for generations, it could have been different. It could also have been different if his mother’s family cared at all for their youngest daughter who had married a fourth-rate knight. But it was Gwaine’s father, with his unremarkable connections and bloodline, and his unfailing faithfulness, that had died in Caerleon’s service, and in reward for that, the king sent his wife and children away without hope or thanks.

(“That was a very foolish thing you did, my lord,” Queen Annis said.

“We were in the midst of a bad harvest even before the war, it is entirely impractical to feed and house the woman and her children out of charity. You cannot call me too cruel.”

“If anyone calls your actions cruel it is your own conscience. But I meant that they were foolish. From what I’ve observed, the boy, Gwaine, has the best head on his shoulders of any of your knights’ sons, and he’s certainly the most skilled in his sword practice. In five or ten years, he could have been one of the best knights of his generation, and you need good knights.”

“What do you know about knightly arts?” said the king, brusquely. He had never thought to pay attention to the children who would one day serve him.)

In the small town where Gwaine’s mother managed to buy a tiny hut for herself and her children, Gwaine’s family were not well-liked. His mother and sister were too proud and withdrawn, and Gwaine was too angry and too eager to prove he was tough.

They survived, that first year. They survived, and by noble standards they barely managed to, but by the standards of the homeless peasants they were (for they were not houseless, but they were  _ homeless _ , cast out by king and family and place, and left with few belongings and no  _ belonging _ at all) they survived quite reasonably.

Because of this, Gwaine’s mother and sister, remembering their days of satin and comfort complained bitterly throughout the cold winter. But Gwaine, seeing that his lot was no worse than his neighbors’, felt that he had no right to be bitter, which of course only made him more miserable. His mother talked proudly of what they deserved as nobility, as though they ought to be given everything simply because of who they were, that the commoners, their neighbors, should be grateful, for what she would not say. His sister nodded along, but Gwaine did not hold with such things, not when, so far as he could tell with his own eyes and heart and mind, people were just people. Gwaine’s anger was instead directed towards the king and nobility in general, and the more his mother and sister bemoaned the sad loss of their noble rights, the more Gwaine disdained them, and so he lost what remained of his family.

Gwaine was a lonely boy, then, and he spent much of his time practicing with his father’s sword, because he liked it, and because he felt as though it proved something. What, he did not know.

(“Aren’t you too old for games?” His mother snapped. She had become increasingly snappish, but then so had Gwaine.

“It’s not a game,” Gwaine said, “What if bandits attacked the village?”

“What,” his mother laughed unkindly, “You’d fight them off all on your own?”

Better to die fighting than to live like this, Gwaine thought.)

But the money ran out, and their neighbors' kindness ran thin. Gwaine helped in some of the wealthier farms, and in return they gave him food and wool and other necessities. (Gwaine’s mother did not know how to spin, and refused to learn, so they had to pay someone else to do it.) But even the most well-off farms didn’t have enough money to spare to pay Gwaine for his work, and Gwaine’s mother saw the gifts of food as charity (which it sort of was) and her pride could not abide it. So she put an end to Gwaine working at farms, and they scraped by on what money they could make from Gwaine’s mother and sister doing mending and embroidery. (The embroidery they mostly sold in town, which was nearly a full day’s walk away).

It was not enough. It certainly wasn’t enough to feed a growing boy, just entering adolescence.

“What good are you?” his mother said to him one day soon after Gwaine turned fourteen, with winter approaching close on their heels, “You’ll eat us out of house and home without an ounce of gratitude.”

And Gwaine, half starved and angry to his bones, looked at this woman who was his mother, whom he had no respect for at all. He felt certain that he had loved her, once, when their lives were kinder, but he could not remember it now.

“All right,” Gwaine said, “I’ll leave then.”

And so, when Gwaine was fourteen, he walked away with nothing but the clothes on his back and his father’s sword.


End file.
